Like an auctioneer on speed, Busdriver’s impressively fast rhyming
skills help him stack the strange, intriguing Jhelli Beam with a
word count generally reserved for major Russian literature.
Jhelli Beam, with both live instrumentation and programmed
beats, highlights Busdriver’s loquacious, throaty rhyming. It also
features appearances from Nick Thorburn of Islands (on the middling
“Happy Insider”) and John Dieterich of Deerhoof (on “Fishy Face”).
Meanwhile, “Me-Time (With the Pulmonary Palimpsest)” transforms
Mozart’s “Sonata in A Major” into a clever backing track.
Busdriver’s hilarious, maddening and bizarre rhymes make the album
appealing and exhaustive. Anti-club anthem “Sorry, Fuckers” hits
brilliantly with, “You’re from Hollywood / You get your sphincter
bleached / Sit your ass home and eat your quiche,” while raps like, “My
cardigan reeks in partisan pink / Because I’m Baron Fink in the Martian
sphinx,” from the trembling “Scoliosis Jones,” are Dada-esque.
Nonetheless, guest Nocando scores the album’s best raps on “Least
Favorite Rapper,” shouting down other MCs (“Your favorite rapper’s got
Alzheimer’s / Repeats himself like an old-timer / He works harder than
a coalminer / When it comes to picking ghostwriters”), mocking Michael
Richards’ infamous rant (mimicking it to the letter) and pointing out
the discrepancy in rap demographics (“The suburban kids say I’m not
street enough / But compared to them I’m street as fuck”).
A hip-hop album with a delivery both playful and fierce, Jhelli
Beam works for those comfortable with such musical paradoxes.
This article appears in Aug 13-19, 2009.